Panera helps honor dying grandmother's wish

Wilton man's quest for clam chowder read by thousands

A young man from Wilton seeking to fulfill a wish for his ailing grandmother is gaining notoriety online after his story has generated thousands upon thousands of "likes" on Facebook. It all concerns a bowl of clam chowder from Panera.

Sue Fortier is the manager at the Panera Bread restaurant on Amherst Street in Nashua.

When she got into work last Tuesday, she said she had a phone call waiting.

"Right off the bat he said, 'This is going to be a very strange request,' and he proceeded to tell me about his grandmother," Fortier said.

Brandon Cook, 21, of Wilton, was on a mission for his grandmother, who is dying of cancer. She specifically wanted clam chowder from Panera.

"This is what she went on and on about, was the bread bowl here, so I tried to get it for her as best I could," Brandon Cook said.

However, Panera only makes clam chowder on Fridays.

"He knew we didn't serve it on Tuesdays, but was there any way we could help him out, and I just said, 'Absolutely, we can do that,'" Fortier said.

The Panera team made the soup as a special order, and put together a box of cookies Cook was able to pick up later that evening and bring to his grandma.

"It was the last thing she actually ate. She has not passed away yet, but she's on morphine now and drinking water, so it was the last physical meal that she ate. She had about 10 bites, which at that point was a lot," Cook said.

To Cook and his family, the food was more than just a kind gesture.

"You don't really see that anymore, so just the fact that she would do that for me was really special," Cook said.

Fortier said Cook deserves all the credit.

"I have three sons, and if any one of them had done something like that for their grandmother, I would have melted immediately and just run and got it," Fortier said.

Brandon posted a thank you on Facebook and his mother re-posted the note on a Panera message board. Their story has been viewed now by hundreds of thousands of people.

But what matters to Cook is knowing that his grandma had a final wish fulfilled.

"I can't even describe it in words, really. She was grateful, we were grateful," Cook said.